Page 22 of Caged Kitten

8

Katja

“Fox?”

I was off like a shot, leaping from my cot and sprinting all three strides to my open cell door. At noon on a weekday—not that it really seemed to matter, weekday or weekend—the block was quiet, almost everyone but Rafe and me dispersed around the grounds for their assigned prison jobs. I mean, that bird shifter Helen also had the day off from kitchen duty, but we hadn’t exchanged one word since I woke up in this hellhole—that wasn’t about to change anytime soon.

Out of habit, I glanced toward the vampire’s dark cell beside mine as soon as I stepped outside; I couldn’t even begin to fathom what torture each day was for him in here, sunlight crashing through all the other cells and spilling across the common area. Vampires literally burned to a crisp in sunshine, and his only protection during the daytime hours was the same dank cell we all despised.

And he was stuck in there, hiding.

Waiting for sunset—waiting for Elijah to come back so someone would help him through the shadows.

Nearly two weeks into my miserable forced stay in what I assumed was the world’s first supernatural prison, I had decided to let him be during the day. Yeah, it was kind of awkward, both of us acutely aware of each other on opposite sides of the same wall, but vampires were nocturnal by nature. If he needed to sleep—because they sure weren’t feeding vamps enough to sustain themselves—then I didn’t want to keep him up with small talk or nervous babbling.

Today was no different. He’d been in his cell since the others left for work, silent in the pitch-black cavern, and I’d been in mine, sitting in the sunshine, picking at my nails, trying to read one of the books I’d nabbed from the library cart but completely and utterly unable to focus on the words. You know. Just business as usual until two hours before dinner when the rest of the block returned.

Only now there was Thompson, calling my name.

“You ready for something different?” he asked, the one guard in that scary black uniform who wasn’t a complete asshole. Sure, he was guilty of joining in on the snide conversations if the other guards were around. I had seen him take an inmate’s food away for mouthing off, then dump the food on the ground seconds later and make the shifter in question lick it up. So, yes, he had the capacity to be a dick, but in my limited experience, he sucked the least of the six guards on Cellblock C’s rotation. Tall, square-jawed, freckled, olive-skinned—a good-looking warlock with a wedding ring tan who had the decency to turn his back on me in the shower.

And that made him kind of okay in my books.

“What do you mean?” I asked, mindful to keep my tone subdued—docile. Don’t make waves. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Survive. Three rules that I was still trying to live by, because as far as I could tell, there was no escape from Xargi.

Especially with this collar on.

“You’ve got a work assignment,” he told me, the edges of his mouth quirking when my eyes widened. “Warden opened an in-house bakery a few months back, and it’s finally staffed. You want to roll out dough for a few hours?”

“Oh, gods, yes.” I started toward him, then immediately planted my feet when his hand twitched for the wand on his belt. Six inches, white-washed cedar—curved handle with ornate carvings on the grip. Ugh. I missed my wand so much.

I missed Tully more.

Did Thompson have a familiar?

I’d been desperate to ask, desperate to try to form a connection with the warlocks running this place, but nothing about their demeanor screamed friendly. Not the black uniform or the steel-toed boots or the grim expressions—and definitely not the way they indiscriminately tormented inmates. In here, it didn’t matter that we were both from the same supernatural community. I was lesser because I was, supposedly, a criminal, and Thompson would reach for his wand every time I made the mistake of moving too fast—of forgetting myself.

“Sorry,” I muttered, hands twined behind my back, palms sweaty. “Sorry, I… Yes, I’d love to knead dough.”

Anything was better than here, than a cellblock with a demon who looked at me like he wanted to hurt me. Hell, he’d probably enjoy it. Elijah had cemented Deimos’s interest in me that first day by making a scene, and the demon hadn’t let me forget it. Always watching, always smirking, always making lewd gestures to his crotch and seductive—by his definition only—flicks of his tongue in my direction…

Ugh.

“You’ll make ten cents an hour,” Thompson remarked as we drifted toward the cellblock door, and I brightened at the thought.

“Does that mean my commissary account is open?”

“You think you can buy anything with today’s whopping forty cents?”

“I mean, no, but—”

“Yeah,” he said, throwing a grin over his shoulder as he unbolted the door and motioned for me to walk through, “your account is officially active. Congrats, Fox.”

“Thanks.” I ducked my chin and peered up at him through my lashes in passing. While I wasn’t about to let any guard touch me, some seemed to get off on the submissive female thing—and I could at least play the part a little if it meant they wouldn’t see me as a threat.

As soon as Thompson sealed the door tight behind us with a fastening charm, I followed him down familiar corridors, surrounded by cinder blocks and artificial light, until finally we ventured into hallways I’d never seen before. This place was a maze; built like an old stone fort, you’d think it would be straightforward, but nope. It was all winding and weaving and up and down, dead silence except for the odd scream or cackle from behind another magically sealed door.

We ended up one floor underground, and I smelled the bread long before we reached the bakery, fresh and crisp, a hint of normalcy as I still struggled to find my sea legs fourteen days after I had woken up in the interrogation room. No lawyer had come calling. I’d never had a trial. I was just—here.

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